Down The Dragons Tongue

by Margaret Mahy

Imaginative youngsters Miranda and Harry beg their conservative businessman father to join them as they go down the slide despite his white shirt, shiny shoes, and hand-painted silk tie.

Genres: Picture Books, Family, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Margaret Mahy was a well-known New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. While the plots of many of her books have strong supernatural elements, her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up.

Her books The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance both received the Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association. There have 100 children's books, 40 novels, and 20 collections of her stories published. Among her children's books, A Lion in the Meadow and The Seven Chinese Brothers and The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate are considered national classics. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic.

For her contributions to children's literature she was made a member of the Order of New Zealand. The Margaret Mahy Medal Award was established by the New Zealand Children's Book Foundation in 1991 to provide recognition of excellence in children's literature, publishing and literacy in New Zealand. In 2006 she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award (known as the Little Nobel Prize) in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature".

Margaret Mahy died on 23 July 2012.

On 29 April 2013, New Zealand’s top honour for children’s books was renamed the New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret...

Reviews

[Shelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read aloud to share with much expression and voice change ups to a group of children (or with just your little one). Mr. Prospero is a tidy man who likes things to be just so. His office is immaculate as is his wardrobe. When he gets home from work though the his persnickety ways must end because he has children; and as every parent knows, kids are noisy and messy. One evening Mr. Prospero is met at the door by his twins, wife and dog all begging that he take the kids and fur family to the park so mom can have some quiet. But what about his suit? His lovely tie? and shiny shoes? These are not things he wishes to sully at the park!

I love books like this that remind parents to push the silly switch from time to time and just have fun with their children.

[The Brothers · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay story of an uptight father learning to let loose a little with his children by sliding down a huge, long slide at the playground.

Okay illustrations.